In recent days, Turkey has witnessed a heated public debate between Huseyin Celik, deputy chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and party spokesman, and journalist Ertugrul Ozkok, who managed the leading mainstream secular nationalist daily Hurriyet between 1990 and 2010.

The debate which became more of a clash arose from the issue of the secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu. Celik voiced crticisism against Ihsanoglu that was summarized in an Al-Monitor article by Fehim Tastekin. Ozkok responded sternly. Celik in return said the fact that a ‘’disreputable” person such as Ozkok had replied to him was a vindication of his views.

Before going into the debate, it might be useful to give a brief background of these two men.

Huseyin Celik is one of the most popular personalities of the Turkish government. He is one of four AKP officials best known to the public after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He is not of Islamic nationalist roots, but comes from a center-right ideology. He describes himself as ''a liberal-democrat as much as a Muslim.’’ With his almost daily press conferences he is frequently quoted in Turkish newspapers. Celik, who was an academic before he turned to politics, was born in 1950 in the Gurpinar town of the Kurdish provincial city of Van, in the easternmost part of Turkey. His mother and father were Kurds, and his mother tongue is Kurdish. He has always proudly declared that he is a Kurd who opposes Kurdish nationalism. He graduated from the faculty of literature at Istanbul University in 1983. Between 1988 and 1992, he was in Britain doing his doctorate research, while also pursuing a master's degree at the Turkish politics department of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Later, he was in Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and France for research on Turkey's first political opposition movement, “The New Ottomans Association.’’ He finished his doctorate in 1991.